Moments of Despair

This morning I was at my mother’s place and I saw a coffee mug on one of the kitchen shelves. It had a long stream of words printed on it. I drew closer. It was a story. It had a title too. I sat down with it at the dining table and began reading.

Footprints

One night a woman dreamt that she was walking along the beach with God. Across the sky flashed scenes from her life. For each scene she saw two sets of footprints in the sand, one was her own and the other, God’s.

When the last scene flashed before her, she looked back and saw that many times along the path of life there was only one set of footprints and it happened at the saddest times.

She was upset and asked God, “God you said that you would always walk with me all the way, but I saw only one set of footprints, in my most troublesome times. You were not there when I needed you the most.”

God replied, ” My precious child, I love you and would never leave you. During your trials and sufferings, when you saw one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.

This is the message for the times of despair but to be read, understood and internalised when the times are still better.

My moments of despair are when Dhruv is told that he cannot do or should not do a certain thing. There are no reasoning or logic given but loud NOs and threatening pitches. The reason given by the sayer is “Because I said so”, Who tells him so? There are many since presently we live in a joint family set up.

One of my parenting mantra has been to never stop him from doing a thing or activity with an only NO unless off course it is threatening. I believe children as young as him can understand the logic and so I tell him the pros and cons of doing a thing, tell him to be careful and let him think over it whether to carry it out or not. Yes, he favours trying it out, many a times under my watchful eyes. He is curious. He is an explorer. He is practicing newly learnt skills over and over again. Why should we kill his experimenting instincts with a harsh NO?

A dialogue from one of my favourite movies ‘The pursuit of happiness’ where Christopher Gardner (Will Smith) tells his son